I will never forget the summer of 1968 and I was body surfing Sandy Beach on the South Shore of Oahu. Sandy Beach is one of the premier body surfing beaches in the world. The waves that day were probably 15 foot on the faces. I considered myself a strong swimmer and a very competent bodysurfer. So I enthusiastically swam on out and rode the waves for about a half an hour. I was having a great session until a bodysurfer’s worst nightmare happened to me. I got caught in a severe rip current. It was one like I had never experienced before. What was really frightening was that it was drifting west and pulling me towards the famous blowhole. A blowhole is an underwater cave that has an opening on the surface that sprouts out (blows out) the surging water from the ocean. It is a spectacular sight. But you don’t want to drift into a blowhole if you catch my drift. So here I was caught in a rip tide, being pulled closer and closer to the blowhole and I could not get out of it. I cried out for help but no one could hear me and fought and fought frantically until I reached sheer exhaustion. At that point I resigned myself to my imminent drowning. Then suddenly I was grabbed by a lifeguard who had seen my peril and swam out to rescue me. He told me to relax and I held on to him for dear life. I trembled for what had almost and most certainly would have happened to me. I was elated. I was overjoyed and so very thankful. That is the way I feel this Passion Week about being rescued from God’s wrath against sin in hell.
Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones was a great preacher at the Westminster Chapel in London for 40 years. The year before his death when he was 81 years old in 1981 Christianity Today asked him, "Do you have any final word for our generation?" He answered simply by quoting, “Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). The wrath of God is eternal, terrible, deserved, and escapable, because of the death and resurrection of Christ. Let the apostle John remind us of how terrible and eternal the wrath of God is with just one of his most dreadful images.
Revelation 19:15, “From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.”
Notice the four parts of this terrible picture of God’s judgment on those who do not repent.
First, God is “almighty.” We are dealing here not with a mere world ruler, like the president of the United States or the Chinese Premier. They are as nothing compared to the power of the Creator of the Universe. “Almighty” means that God has all the power in the universe. All atomic power. All electromagnetic power. All gravitational power. All the power in the greatest explosions that are or ever have been among the greatest stars of space.
Second, this almighty God will pour out his wrath. He is not only a God of love, but of holiness and justice and wrath.
Third, his wrath is full of fury. John speaks of “the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.” The wrath is not cool opposition. It is furiously angry opposition.
And fourth, and perhaps most terrible, Jesus himself is pictured as treading the winepress of this fury. That means that those who rebelled and did not repent are like grapes under the feet of the fury of Christ, and are crushed until their blood runs like wine from the press.
On the cross God punished His Son in our place; we are saved from our greatest peril, the wrath of God. I would like to bear witness to the truth that, before he saved me, his terrible wrath rested upon me. Jesus said, ‘Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey . . . the wrath of God remains on him’ (John 3:36). Wrath remains on us as long as there is no faith in Jesus.
Paul puts it like this: We ‘were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind’ (Ephesians 2:3). “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” ( Romans 1:18). ""Because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God …to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness God will render wrath and indignation." (Romans 2:5-8).
Our very nature made us worthy of wrath. Our destiny was to endure ‘flaming fire’ and ‘vengeance on those . . . who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus . . . [and who] suffer the punishment of eternal destruction’ (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9). We were not sons of God. God was not our Father. He was our judge and executioner. I was ‘dead in . . . trespasses and sins’, one of the ‘sons of disobedience’ (Ephesians 2:1-2). And the sentence of our Judge was clear and terrifying: ‘because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience’ (Ephesians 5:5).
The Holy wrath of God is a horrible destiny. The judgment and damnation of unrepentant sinners is the loud shout from heaven that God is infinitely holy, and sin is infinitely offensive, and wrath is infinitely just. This is our problem. God is indignant and wrathful toward us in our unrighteousness and our untruthfulness. If you ask the Bible, what we need to be saved from, the answer comes back – yes, from sin; and yes, from guilt; and yes, from shame; and yes, from disunity and bad relationships; and yes, from destructive habits and harmful ways; but ultimately the answer is: We need to be saved and rescued from God's wrath.
There was only one hope for us – that the infinite wisdom of God might make a way for the love of God to satisfy the wrath of God so that we might become sons and daughters of God.
This is exactly what happened. After saying that we were by nature a child of wrath, Paul says, ‘But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ’ (Ephesians 2:4-5). This is the very triumph of the love of God. This is the love of God – the ‘great love with which he loved us’. It rescued us from His wrath and adopted us into sonship.
‘But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son . . . to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons’ (Galatians 4:4). God sent his Son to rescue us from His wrath and make us His children.
How did he do it? God’s Son bore God’s curse in our place. ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”’ (Galatians 3:13). If people in the twenty-first century find this greatest act of love ‘morally dubious and a huge barrier to faith’, it was not different in Paul’s day. ‘We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles’ (I Corinthians 1:23).
But for those who are called by God and believe in Jesus, this is ‘the power of God and the wisdom of God’ (I Corinthians 1:24). This is my life. This is the only way God could become our Father. Now that his wrath no longer rests on us (John 3:36), he has sent the Spirit of sonship flooding into our hearts crying Abba, Father (Romans 8:15).
Who qualifies to enjoy the liberating power of the death of Christ? Sinners who need to be saved from God’s wrath. Paul was overjoyed that the Lord from heaven is “Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). But he warned that “for those who…don’t obey the truth…there will be wrath and fury” (Romans 2:8). There are only two things I ever receive from God: justice or mercy. Eternal life or God's wrath and fury - these are the two alternatives. Which one are you receiving? This moment you are either a sinner condemned or rescued; under wrath or grace. Jesus came to rescue you from the wrath to come! If He has not rescued you, then you are in imminent danger of that wrath! God’s wrath is escapable right now. No one has to spend eternity under the wrath of God if they will receive God’s Son as Savior and Lord and Treasure.
Romans 3:25 says that God put Jesus Christ “forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” My prayer is that this would be clear to each one of you readers—that the death of Jesus Christ is the only way that any of us can escape the wrath of God and find right standing and peace with God. Lay down the arms of your rebellion and receive His blood bought amnesty, and embrace God’s Son Jesus as your savior and deliver from His wrath and as your Lord and treasure. I urge you right now in the name of Jesus Christ, to run to the cross and take refuge in the rescuing arms of Jesus!
A PRAYER:
I thank you, heavenly Father, with all my heart that you saved me from your wrath. I rejoice to measure your love for me by the magnitude of the wrath I deserved and the wonder of your mercy by putting Christ in my place.
Pastor Bill
No comments:
Post a Comment